There is no way I can win with this list. Someone’s nose will be out of joint, so powerful are our ties to the snack foods that form the foundation of our childhood.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to go as hard as I can towards brutal honesty, to hell with the feelings. Here, then, are the top 10 Australian-adopted snacks.
11. Tim Tams
If you thought this absolute scrubbing snack was going to be #1 on this list, you’re dreaming. The Tim Tam is the most basic Australian sandwich, and yes, I mean that as an insult.
Coveted for God knows what reason, this mediocrity is sitting here for two reasons: one, because if I don’t put it here, the comments section will explode, and two, because putting it here outside the bounds of the list is profoundly amusing, and will to guarantee the comments section will explode. When it comes to hedonism, this mediocre cookie is the equivalent of a sexy firefighter calendar and a bathroom surrounded by scented tea lights. May he burn in the pits of mediocrity forever.
If you’re still reading and didn’t tune out because the last one got on your nerves too much, welcome. Here begins the real list.
10. Double dip
Double Dip is a corner store staple, and remains so to this day. Why? Behold: the illusion of choice. Do you eat the orange sorbet? Do you eat the cherry sorbet? Or do you wreck the system and eat the same implement that is used to pick up and eat the straw? oh But the creators of Double Dip know the awful truth: you’ll eat it all eventually. It’s like The Matrix, if you take the blue pill AND the red pill. And eat Morpheus.
9. Doodler
The Tasmanian tiger of Australian junk food, the Scribbler was a block of ice sold by Streets back in the 1990s. It looked like a big pencil, with yellow for the wood inside and a red cape. A chocolate ball was the protagonist. There was something so illicit about chewing on a giant pencil, but it was the combination of block ice and chocolate that really pushed the boat out here.
The streets produced bastardizations without chocolate over the years, but let’s not be fooled. So obscure is the original Scribbler that you can only find images like the one above. Watch? It is almost mythical. Also, to be a kid who refused to pick up a pencil and do his damn homework, but was all too happy to eat a pencil in full view of his parents? That’s power, my friends.
8. Ice Cream Vovo
People often claim that Iced Vovo used to be bigger. Padded. And yet, when you buy them now, they are very small and very flat.
Now, after much research and discussion, it turns out that this is an excellent case of the Mandela Effect, in which large numbers of people become confused about something, perpetuate it, and years later the fake has replaced the real in their minds. heads Enter this thread:
Rewriting history #289. About 20 years ago, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, I retouched this image or a similar one (I made a few similar ones after the original) to show Australian Arnott’s Iced Vovos with marshmallows. I think it was in response to a friend. pic.twitter.com/9vUfwksSaW
— Dana Siber (@NanoRaptor) May 21, 2021
See, it turns out there’s a good chance an old Photoshop job, mixed with real memories, has convinced people that Iced Vovos is a quilted marshmallow wonder. With all of this in mind, why is Iced Vovo still so low on this list? Because they had us, that’s why. And someone has to pay. Why not Iced Vovo?
7. Musk sticks
Musk is mainly used in perfumery. Why do we eat it? Why is it compressed into pink sticks and thrown into jars? Because here in Australia we have refined palates, that’s why. In an age where gastronomic pioneering is championed, where sweet and savory mix, and where flowers find their way into cocktails, what’s so wild about a musk-flavored palette? Nothing, that is. Oh, and as any good proctologist will tell you, soft ones are good, and avoid hard, chalky ones at all costs.
6. Milo
Milo belongs to the periodic table. So paramount and fundamental is it to the firmament, the very foundation of Australian food culture, that its inclusion on a list of junk food is like including flour on a list of the 10 best cakes. How do you eat Milo? Do you pour and then stir like crazy? Hot or cold? Do you put three heaping tablespoons on top of a glass of milk and try not to sneeze? Or do you eat it out of the can like a garbage wizard? There is no judgment here.
The Milo website states that the drink is named after “MILO® from Croton, a Greek fighter who lived in the 6th century BC. C. and possessed legendary strength”, which is very good. But beware of any company so powerful that it can literally trademark the name of an ancient Greek wrestler.
5. Bertie Beetle
Many products have been written out of the annals of Australia’s snack history books, but just like the bugs, Bertie Beetle has burrowed into the cracks and survived. prospered? No. But escaping the confectionery crawl space that is the cut-price display bag industry is a nifty way to weather the storm. They’re a bit savory, I guess, but it’s their weird pet that really makes them shine. Is Bertie Beetle a hero? A villain? Either way, he will outlive us all.
4. Tasty Toobs
You have to respect a snack that dies in the first few days and then comes back due to public demand. Discontinued in 2001, mounting pressure from Australians brought the Tasty Toob back in 2007. It was gone again in 2015 and back again, hitting shelves in 2021. Tasty Toobs is the John Farnham of snack foods. Jack smiling? No. Smiling SNACK… I’ll let myself out.
3. Rainbow Palette
“Actually, it’s just caramel flavor” is the “actually, it’s Frankenstein’s MONSTER” of the Australian ice cream world. Yes, dad, we know that the rainbow lollipop is caramel flavored. Although… is it? Do you remember stepping out of the local pool, the hot pavement burning your feet as you run into the shade of the kiosk to order a paddlepop? Do you remember staring at the swirls of color, drunk with possibilities? The sugar shoots right into your young brain; the stick is sticky with melted ice cream. We don’t care. Candy? That is not candy we have in our hands. That is the universe.
2. Cookie Polly
Dads love two things: a good time and Pollywaffles. Maybe it’s because deep down, dads feel deeply misunderstood. Maybe they love an underdog. They may be running headlong toward a diagnosis of diabetes. Whatever the case may be, I have bought and delivered a Pollywaffle to three dads in my life. Each time, they reacted like I was the Lady of the Lake giving Excalibur back to Arthur. Honestly, there’s something weird going on here, and who am I to come between a Pope and his Polly? No one. that’s who
1. The Agro Cone
It’s the most basic rule of economics: scarcity increases value. By that metric, the Agro cone is staggeringly valuable. Technically, the sugar content of many of the snacks on this list would guarantee that they would survive the most nuclear of nuclear winters. But the Agro cone? That was a moment in time. A cultural touchstone tied to a perpetually petulant puppet. It’s the food equivalent of Nikki Webster being lowered into the Olympic stadium.
Sure, you can technically go and order an Agro cone from Mister Whippy. Sure, you can technically knock on Nikki Webster’s door and ask her to perform for you. But they both had a brief, bright window outside of which, unless you were there, you’ll never really understand what all the fuss was about.
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